May Rules Update

[keterys]

Spirit of Healing was insanely good and needed a big nerfstick whack but to seriously nerf a core class ability (Healer's Lore) that's been in place from the beginning of the game just sucks. The two combined make Spirit of Healing a waste of time.

I'm pretty sure getting 4-9 healing per hit, for a combat, is a pretty good thing. It's like Stirring Shout on every enemy for half your party. That's really good.

Astral Seal did heal well but it was hardly overpowered.

The internet begs to differ. Heck, my own play experience begs to differ, but I can tell you that there are hundreds of posts about how overpowered and broken Astral Seal is, on this forum, on wotc's forums, etc.

I play a support cleric and at 16th level Astral Seal was never a guaranteed heal like healing word was.

But, it was one that was at-will and surgeless.

I'm giving up a standard action to put the Seal on the bad guy. ... A minus 2 penalty to defenses isn't even worth bothering with.

You vastly underestimate the effect of a -2 to all defenses. It's a very good thing, and very often equivalent (or even better, in some groups) to if you yourself did a damaging attack. Astral Seal also has a +2 attack on its own, which makes it very likely to land round to round.

 

[DracoSuave]

Spirit of Healing and Astral Seal were not the reasons for the Healer's Lore nerf.

Well, okay, they -were- but not the only reasons-- Consecrated Ground, all sorts of repeatable healing were much a problem. It's -repeatable- healing that is the problem, not just 'surgeless'. If it uses a daily, that's a resource gone just the same.

 

[babinro]

Does the change to aura's essentially mean that all creatures operate like Chillborn Zombies? (pg 275MM1) in that their aura damage stack with creatures of the same type?

If so, I really like the change. It makes standing up next to aura creatures deadly and promotes more positioning tactics. It will also ramp up the difficulty of such encounters significantly.

 

[keterys]

Yep, everything works like Chillborn now. Fear the Bloodfire Harpies

 

[Ferghis]

Cure light wounds says you regain hit points as though you spent a healing surge.

Had you spent a healing surge, healer's lore would apply.

So, you can make an argument (probably technically incorrect, but pretty close, and pretty reasonable) that Healer's Lore applies to CLW.

Not the case, unfortunately.

May 4, 2010 -- 1:18PM, WotC_GregB wrote:You don't gain the bonus to healing in powers that say "as if you had spent a healing surge."

I'm very happy with this update but I have to say that I agree with Dracosuave. The Cure X Wounds powers have language that specifically say "as if the target spent a healing surge." This language means, unequivocally, that the power acts in all ways as if a healing surge was spent. The ONLY exception is that a healing surge is not actually spent. If they meant that the power heals an amount of HP equal to a healing surge (or two or three), then they should have said just that. They've used that kind of language elsewhere. And they obviously had thought it through, since it was corrected so quickly. But they should have put the correction in the update. As things stand now, there is an update, and there is an authoritative forum post that contradicts it.

And I'm not being cavillous here. It's annoying that a game director came out on a message board to correct this mistake shortly after the update came out. For what it's worth, I realize that the job of desiging a game as complex and massive as the fourth edition of D&D is frought with difficulty. They do have my sympathy. Still, the game apparently is in immediate need of another update to the update.

 

[DracoSuave]

More importantly, look at this language:

'"Corellon’s Implement (11th level): Choose an arcane implement that you specialize in, whether the wand, staff, or orb. You can use a longsword as if it were that type of arcane implement when casting your spells." (Wizard of the Spiral Tower, PHB)

If Cure Light Wounds does not benefit from Healing Lore, then that tears apart a LARGE number of the rules fabric regarding sarrogate or substitution-based powers and abilities. The precident becomes: "Using something as if it were that thing does not mean that you benefit from that thing."

That means that Corellon's Implement now means that if you use a long sword to use your arcane powers, you no longer are able to use your Implement Mastery for that chosen implement; it's pretty clear however the intention behind this is that you ARE able to do so.

Such a ruling extends behind Cure Light Wounds; it actually tears apart a number of rules in the game. In other words, it breaks 4e.

That's why the ruling cannot stand, if it does, 4th edition breaks; I don't disagree with the intent of the ruling, but either Healer's Lore needs re-errata, or every 'foo as if bar' ability in the game would have to be errata'd to do what they're supposed to do.

 

[keterys]

Eh, there are some limits to that. For example, Virtuous Recovery gives you resistance to damage when you spend a healing surge. Do you get it when a cleric uses cure light wounds on you?

No, you didn't spend a surge.

So, now we have two things:

Cure Light Wounds
The target regains hp as if it had spent a healing surge.

Healer's Lore
When you let a creature spend a healing surge to regain hit points with one of your cleric powers that has the healing keyword, add your Wisdom modifier to the hit points the recipient regains.

Does the power let a creature spend a healing surge?

Nope. The power unequivocally does not allow the creature to spend a healing surge.

I'd personally have let it work, but it not working doesn't break 4e. Don't go hyperbolic for effect

 

[Ferghis]

I have to say that the fix is easy. Just change the Cure Light Wounds power to state "The target regains hit points equal to a surge value." Make similar changes to the other Cure X Wounds. If you want to be super-precise, add "... but does not spend any surges" to the end of the sentence. I realize this occupies space in the errata, but at this point, that horse has left the barn months and months ago.

Eh, there are some limits to that. For example, Virtuous Recovery gives you resistance to damage when you spend a healing surge. Do you get it when a cleric uses cure light wounds on you?

No, you didn't spend a surge.

Well, CLW says "The target regains hit points as if it had spent a healing surge." Not "The target gains all the benefits, including recovering hit points, as if it had spent a healing surge." That paladin feat in no way cures hit points. Healer's Lore does.

 

[keterys]

Well, CLW says "The target regains hit points as if it had spent a healing surge." Not "The target gains all the benefits, including recovering hit points, as if it had spent a healing surge." That paladin feat in no way cures hit points. Healer's Lore does.

And Healer's Lore only triggers on powers where you let a target spend a surge.

And CLW isn't a power where you let a target spend a surge. It just isn't.

 

[DracoSuave]

And Healer's Lore only triggers on powers where you let a target spend a surge.

And CLW isn't a power where you let a target spend a surge. It just isn't.

Except that Cure Light Wounds says you regain hit points as if you gained a healing surge.

Notice that... things that are involved in regaining hit points are treated as if you spent a healing surge.

If you have a feat that increases the number of hit points you get when spending a healing surge, it works with Cure Light Wounds, because, according to Cure Light Wounds, for the purposes of regaining hit points, you are treated as if you had spent a healing surge.

That's what 'Do X as if Y' means in the ruleset. It doesn't mean 'You do X, but you don't treat it as if you had done Y.' That's something else entirely.


Follow along:

Healing lore says you regain additional hit points when a Cleric power allows you to spend a healing surge. Cure Light Wounds is a cleric power that gives you hit points -as if you had spent a healing surge-.

If you had spent a healing surge, Healing Lore would give you hit points. Therefore you gain the amount of hit points you'd have gotten if you'd spent a healing surge: Surge value + Clerics Wisdom mod.

X as if you do Y means certain things in the game, and if you undermine that, you break the game rules. That's not desirable. So yes, Healing Lore requires more errata for it to exclude CLW.